writetomyheart | [Team 1] An Unexpected Houseguest

~1400 words of mostly gen (background soriku) kh fluff and slice of life with the radiant garden gang getting dream eaters.

“No cookies on earth are worth this,” Leon grumbled, eying the brightly colored lion suspiciously.

“Really?” Sora’s eyes widened, “Not even those double chocolate chip and peanut butter ones? With the special sea salt I get from San Fransokyo?”

Leon thought about it. Those were delicious cookies.

“It’ll just be for a few days,” Riku reassured him. “Untill we figure out how they’re appearing in the waking world.”

The lion — “Aura Lion!” Sora had said, as if that explained everything — yawned and curled up near the couch, right where Leon had laid his gunblade to polish and clean. Probably getting magic lion hair all over it.

“He likes his belly rubbed! But stay away from his back, he doesn’t like that so much!” Sora said as Riku pulled him out the door. “Oh! And he likes—”

Leon didn’t get to hear about what else his new lion… “pet” enjoyed as the door closed behind them. Leon could hear Riku’s laughter echoing through the alleyway, soon joined by Sora’s own and Leon suddenly found himself much less irritated. After spending a year wondering where Sora was, and helping Riku through his stress and worry, Leon was glad to see the two smiling once more.

A loud snore rang through his small living room and Leon turned back to his houseguest.

Yeah, he was glad, even if the two brought magical chaos with them wherever they went.

—

All in all, having a pet magical lion wasn’t that bad. Leon thought it was rather like what having a cat would be like, if the cat was five feet long and weight anywhere between 4 and 400 pounds depending on his current physical state of being in the waking world. Some days Leon could barely make out the colorful fur of the lion, while on others Leon could barely move under it’s heavy weight as he decided that Leon was the best pillow for a nap.

He had tried to set boundaries — not letting the lion on the couch and definitely not letting him in Leon’s bed — but those lasted about as long as it took the lion to figure out that a set of big eyes and pleading face was all it took for Leon to allow him to do whatever he wanted. Leon assumed that Sora taught the lion that trick. It was how he got Leon to agree to this crazy deal in the first place (well, that and the promise of cookies).

“That can’t be comfortable,” Leon grumbled.

The Lion snored in response. All four feet were in the air, but it’s back was twisted into a curve that made Leon’s spine ache looking at it.

But no matter how much Leon complained, the Lion never moved so Leon just maneuvered around it, wondering what his life was when he had to negotiate space in his own damn bed.

That night Leon dreamed, as he often did. And like alot of nights, his dreams soon morphed into nightmares, always focusing on the night Leon’s home was first destroyed. Emotions raced through dream Leon’s heart: the fear of not knowing what was going on, the uncertainty of where to go, the—

Before Leon could even finish thinking about the emotions warring his his heart, the nightmare ended. Snapped out of existence as if it had never been there. Ths abrupt change was so jarring Leon woke up from slumber,

He nearly panicked when he found he coudln’t lift his chest, but that fear soon quieted when he saw that his houseguest had laid his head on Leon’s chest, restricting his breathing a bit, but not painfully so. The lion was awake, but sleepily so, and smacking his lips as if he just ate something tasty.

Leon was suddenly reminded that his guest was no ordinary magical lion (as common as those are) but a “dream eater.” Was that more than just a cutesy monniker that Sora gave them?

As if sensing his thoughts, the Lion bleached. Loud.

Leon groaned and laid back in bed, trying to ignore the smell of Lion breath. “Fine you can stay in bed if you’re gonna be useful.”

The lion grumbled in response as if to reply that leaving the bed was never an option.

—

At some point, Leon realized that, if the lion was to stay with him for a while, he would probably need a name. Even Leon had grown tired of calling it “hey you!”

And so after many discarded names (Leon was growled at for even jokingly suggesting “Clarence”) Leon finally settled on the simple, if unimaginative, ‘Leo.’

Leo seemed to like his new name. Or, at least, he didn’t growl at it. Leon took his wins where he could these days.

—

“So… Sora dropped one off on you too?”

Leon almost asked what Cloud was talking about, but it became clear when another colorful creature, this one spiky and… bouncy, stumbled through the door behind Cloud and jumped over to Leo who was lounging on the large rug in front of the couch. The two stared at each other for a long moment before Leo huffed and laid back down. The other creature bounced in what Leon could only describe as irritation before suddenly turning bright red and lashing out with its tail.

Leon barely flinched at the blow, merely reached out with a large paw and swiped at the creature, grabbing it by its prickly tail and dragging it down so Leo could use it as a prickly pillow.

Cloud’s new friend squeaked and grumbled in irritation before giving up and soon there were twin snores emanating from the rug.

“Well… I don’t know what I expected,” Leon grumbled, letting Cloud enter and closing the door behind him. “But yes, Sora ‘dropped one off’ with me, too.”

“Did he tell you when he’d be back for them?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” Cloud sighed and leaned against the wall.

Leon relaxed against the other wall, refusing to feel awkward about the blond’s presence. After going missing for almost as long as Sora had, the two had shown up just as mysteriously as they had disappeared. Neither would say where they had been, why they had come back, or if Cloud’s stalker/frenemy would be showing up as well. Aerith and Yufi both seemed to know something about it but refused to say anything, leaving Leon in the dark.

As always.

“So…” Cloud began, looking over to the rug. “Yours is a… Lion?”

Leon looked over as well. “Yeah. What’s yours supposed to be? Some kind of porcupine?”

“Sora called it a ‘Pricklemane,’ Cloud explained. “And Riku said it was a ‘lion-like creature.”

“Riku needs to get his eyes checked,” Leon muttered. If Cloud small creature was a ‘lion’ then Leo was some kind of sheep. “What did you name him?”

“Huh?” Cloud looked confused at the question.

“Y’know… so you can call him when he’s not listening? Or is up on the couch when he’s not supposed to be? Or trying to get into the fridge to sneak more ice cream?”

Not that Leo would do any of those things.

“Oh…” Cloud tilted his head. “His name is Prickle.”

Leon huffed, “You can’t just call him by half of his… species type.”

“Fine then.”

There was another beat of silence before—

“His name is Prick.”

Leon nearly groaned in exasperation before catching a glance of Cloud’s teasing, self-satisfied smirk. Then Leon groaned a little quieter.

Were all spiky-haired boys out to cause him stress or was Leon just lucky that way?

—

It was nearly a month later before they heard from Sora. Leon’s phone ringing just as he was about to go to bed, and Leo raised his head in interest.

“How’s it going?” Leon asked, watching Sora and Riku through the screen, though Riku looked like he was gonna fall asleep at any moment. “Did you find out more about Leo, er, my house guest?”

“Leo?” Sora’s eyes grew wide. “You named him?!”

Riku grumbled as Sora’s excitement must have awoken him from dozing off so Sora hushed and apologized with a quick kiss to Riku’s forehead.

“I’m glad you guys are getting on so well!” Sora said, much quieter than moments ago. “And uh… well… to answer your question… well…”

Leon raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

Riku grumbled and finally opened one eye to look at the phone. “The short answer is that it’s complicated… the long answer is that it’s very complicated.”

Next up is

knittenkitten, your words are "The short answer is that it's complicated... the long answer is that it's very complicated."